Why My Pottermore Sorting Won’t Change Me

A couple of weeks ago, Pottermore gifted me with the brilliant honor of access to its website.

Pottermore, of course, is an online experience that allows Harry Potter fans to walk through the series as characters within it. It also gives us fans extra content author J.K. Rowling wrote to give us more things to read and more about which to be excited.

It took me a couple of days to get to the Sorting part. For those out of the know, Sorting is a big event for Hogwarts-attending 11-year-olds in Potter’s world.

I, of course, have identified as a Hufflepuff since I was about 12 or 13. I originally wanted to be a Gryffindor because I loved the trio and their Gryffindor classmates. But then Cedric Diggory, online quizzes and my progression through the series revealed to me that I possessed more Hufflepuff-esque qualities than the other houses.

Pottermore Sorted me into Ravenclaw.

And when I saw that, I said, “Oh, I got Ravenclaw.”

When I read about Ravenclaw, J.K. Rowling’s passage told me that Ravenclaw was the house of eccentrics. The results make perfect sense with my answers. Pottermore asked me a question about what value of five or six I pride myself in having, and I chose originality. I also chose a similar answer for my wand selection.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Pottermore tailored my passage about Ravenclaw to my answers. Would I read all about Uric the Oddball and crazy former Minsters of Magic, if I had chosen other answers that led me to Ravenclaw? After all, the only eccentric character we read during Harry’s time is Luna Lovegood — who, coincidentally, is my favorite character.

And wasn’t Ravenclaw the house that scrutinized Hagrid’s eccentricities as the Care of Magical Creatures professor? While all of the houses expressed their unfavoring views toward him, shouldn’t’ve Ravenclaw embraced his weirdness? I, for one, would’ve enjoyed learning about hippogriffs and Blast-Ended Skrewts, even if those creatures could kill me.

Growing up, I always assumed Ravenclaw was the house for the wise, which, of course, differs from smart. To me, smartness and wisdom are defined differently, and I have never been as confident in myself to think that I am wise. I’ve only lived for 20 years! And I’d be stupid, if I said that I was smart, as trite as that sounds.

Going off this, we all know the Sorting Hat recognizes the potential a student may have in any of the given houses. But, of course, a blur occurs over some of the houses’ traits. I’ve asked over and over again the following: How can someone be hard-working, a Hufflepuff characteristic, and not ambitious, a Slytherin trait?

How can someone be honest and loyal, Hufflepuff, and not chivalrous, Gryffindor?

This all boils down to Dumbledore’s admission in the seventh book that Hogwarts Sorts its student too. I don’t doubt that, right now, I’m a Ravenclaw. But I doubt, even though Ravenclaw potential surely and dormantly existed in me, that the Hat would’ve Sorted 11-year-old Ryan into Ravenclaw.

I would’ve been a Hufflepuff. I’ve always been loyal, and I’ve always worked hard at things I really wanted to excel in. If I had gone to school for magic, instead of my “academically prestigious” middle school, I would’ve been excellent. Give me Charms over any class I had in middle school any day.

Sure, back then, I wasn’t honest. But that’s youth. And I think the Hat would’ve recognized my honest potential, which I greatly exemplified and prided myself in, since I’ve been 14. And, of course, I’ve always been odd, but at least during the frame of reference Rowling gives to us in Harry’s narrative, not too many Ravenclaws plopped about Hogwarts.

I would’ve been Luna Lovegood, but I think Hufflepuff would’ve been more accepting to my strangeness because I would be the best on the Qudditch Pitch it’d ever seen. Save for Diggory, of course. Didn’t Gryffindor not appreciate Neville Longbottom for a time? I mean, it even didn’t like the trio for many of the books because they kept loosing house points.

But, thank you, J.K. Rowling, I’m flattered that you think I’m a Ravenclaw. And I surely am, at 20.

But I think the 11-year-olds using Pottermore get the real experience. I think I may have gotten Hufflepuff, as an 11-year-old taking the quiz. And I think that I’ll keep my Hufflepuff gear and tell everyone I meet that I’m a Hufflepuff but a Pottermore Ravenclaw, something anyone who got an unexpected house should do.

Pottermore becomes the at-[insert age one took the quiz] house, for those of us older than 11. I’m proud of my at-20 Ravenclaw Sorting. I’ll embrace the weird and the potential for wisdom, which I think may always exist in its potential state, because, hey, I’ve no opposition to anything a little bit off, as long as it’s a lot a bit unique.

So, no, I won’t try to re-Sort to see if I get Hufflepuff. That would be the least-Hufflepuff thing I could do.